The Big Yard: Notes from a Pajama Birdwatcher

With a voice like an insect, a rare Clay-colored Sparrow visits the yard for only the third time. Notice the slightly buffy (“clay”) breastband.

November 20, 2022

My mug of Miner’s Blend is already cold.  I pull the blanket tight around me with fingers numb from a camera lens matching the 33-degree air temperature that sets my sinuses loose through both manifolds.  This morning at the fountain, the birds show me the shivering benefits of ice baths. No thanks.

‘Tis the season of sparrows.  It seems during my absence the winter Emberizines have descended on the yard.  Although the shade-hugging, dirt-scratching towhees are residents, many others visit here only in winter.  Zebra-headed, white-crowned sparrows from summering in Alaska.  Lincoln’s sparrows from Arctic bogs and willow thickets and chipping sparrows from open woodlands in northern Arizona all the way to northern Canada.  With these, come the many forms of dark-eyed juncos—including today’s rare hybrid gray-headed x red-backed.  Among all these secretive, seed-cracking LBJs (Little Brown Jobs), is the possibility of a clay-colored sparrow, a “casual” bird I’ve seen in the yard only twice before, stopping by in the chokecherry tree on its winter journey to Mexico.

Pale lores—the space between the bill and the eye—and an orange bill mark this as the “Gambel’s” form of the White-crowned Sparrow.

I usually get a pair of shy Lincoln’s Sparrows in winter.

Chipping Sparrows always have a dark line through the eye.

The bi-colored upper bill—part pink, part gray—indicates that this Dark-eyed Junco is a hybrid of the common Gray-headed and rare Red-backed forms.

To complicate matters, Brewer’s Sparrows are similar to Clay-colored Sparrows, but have smaller bills and are typically more uniform gray on the breast.

When a small flock of chipping sparrows alights at the top of the fountain, I raise my binoculars to my eyes.  Rick Taylor, in his new Birds of Arizona, says clay-colored sparrows are “single day migrants” in our state, often appearing as a lone bird in a flock of chipping or Brewer’s sparrows.  They look so similar to the latter birds that I must check each one, carefully scanning their faces for pale lores and dark eyelines and bordered cheek patches. Does that henna slash run through the eye or not?  I’m not sure, so I snap a few photos.

His eye is on the sparrow.  I recall the 1905 gospel hymn, thinking about my friend in hospice who recently surprised me by asking me to pray for him. 

Indeed, he watches.  And not one sparrow will fall to the ground without his notice. 

And with the sparrows in place, now come the finches.  This female Cassin’s Finch and a male (below) arrived today. I last saw Cassin’s Finches in the yard in May 2021.

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